What TV Brand?

General Chat Tech & Gaming
1

So, I’m in the market for a new TV.

Vague, quick question, what TV brand from the list below would you ‘trust’? ie - what TV is likely to continue to be supported, and has an OS which isn’t a dead end (I can’t believe we need to talk about OS’s on TVs now!)

My ‘default’ would’ve been Samsung - but my one extra requirement for this purchase is that it’s got to be a ‘Freely’ TV so that I can watch live channels through a nice TV Guide via the internet rather than through an aerial (as I don’t have an aerial!).

The choices are:

  • Bush
  • Sharp
  • TCL
  • Panasonic
  • Toshiba
  • Hisense
0 voters

I’m edging towards Panasonic but I’ve never had one of their TVs before?

3

They all break eventually.

Last place I worked had used Samsung TVs which were switched on 16 hours a day. They were still going strong when I left after 12 years.

4

I had a Panasonic a few years ago and never had any problems with it. Now have an OLED LG which I really like. Fantastic picture streaming with Apple TV.

5

I have had an aversion to Sony since I can remember, but last year, both the salesperson and our own research convinced us to go with Sony and so far it has proven to be the right choice. Sure, it has had its glitches (sometimes loses Wifi, only to regain it after a few seconds, and we’ve had it crash on occasion), but the quality of the picture processing is unparalleled. And it runs Android TV which isn’t going anywhere any time soon, while Samsung still runs its own OS, where apps suddenly become obsolete a few years down the line.

With regards to picture quality, we got a mini-LED that might as well be an OLED, the blacks are blacks and the HDR/DV brightness and contrast are insanely good.

One thing to note that may not be immediately obvious and cause headaches to gamers is that you have to choose Game mode in Picture Settings when playing games (e.g. on GeForce Now or a console); if you keep it on ‘movie’ or any other mode, the post-processing the TV does introduces a lot of lag!

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7

your wish is my command…

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9

Just bought a Panasonic for upstairs and it’s really great and was from Panasonic Direct at a great price. Built in Fire TV and Freely and also has Dolby Vision/Atmos and works great with Sonos Beam and consoles

10

There have been murmurs of both LG and Samsung possibly getting freely at some point as an app but who knows when. I guess it depends if it gets popular.
I was disappointed the freely system wasn’t just an app for anything like Pluto etc.

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12

Panasonic have a promotion at the moment that is giving 5 year warranty with a number of their TVs if warranty is something that would be a factor

I did consider a Hisense but felt the Panasonic was a slightly better spec

14

Might be a silly question but would something like EE’s Apple TV offering not serve the same purpose? Would mean you could use the Apple TV as your daily driver then just opt for whichever TV is the best quality/price combo for you. (Personally I’ve gone for LG’s though their WebOS is rubbish).

Of your options I’d go Panasonic unless you can find a good TCL in person, but I wouldn’t trust the built-in software from any of those brands on my home network. (I don’t trust LG either, hence the AppleTV suggestion)

15

One thing to check is what panel they actually use. Sometimes manufacturers just buy panels from other providers and run their own software.

Samsung OLED or QD-OLED are best for watching movies if you are happy to play around with colour settings.

Sony are great colour wise straight out of the box.

My opinion of course but I do watch a of films.

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16

I do actually have a (standard) Apple TV box.

‘EE’s Apple TV box’ is only available if you’re got EE Broadband - it’s not a standalone product for some reason.

I’ve also got the ‘TV Launcher’ app for Apple TV that gives me access to a lot of ‘live’ TV through the various apps.

But this is where it’s slightly weird in that ‘Freely’ is a replacement for Freeview - eventually the plan would be that everyone would have a good enough internet connection that they can start to flog off the Digital TV spectrum again and so Freely generally has all the Freeview channels available on it - even those that don’t have a dedicated app. Obviously, those are not ‘premium’ channels (like the ‘True Crime’ channel) but it’s still a difference. Also, it’s a seamless experience between the TV guide and and launching the channel on these TVs, compared to going into the TV Launcher app on my Apple TV box, and then selecting a channel to watch, and then the launcher switching out to the relevant app and then trying to find the live channel etc.etc.

So, this is more about future proofing as I need a new TV anyway.

I have also considered a Sky Glass TV (and several times got to the ‘click to checkout’ stage of ordering it)

17

While Sky is a (very) closed ecosystem, it’s easy, simple and just works. Even with non-Sky streaming services. Not cheap but you’re paying for the convenience & content. I’m using 5 Sky streamers at the mo (2 Glass, 3 pucks) and I wouldn’t change it for anything despite constant research into alternatives.

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19

And to think some people would read that sentence and complain about the full stop :face_with_peeking_eye:

20

There software is awful though, that’s my biggest complaint with them. Especially in the professional world.

22

There was a thread before about passive aggressive full stops.

23

I do believe it was the multi-award winning @N26throwaway who issued the edict for people to stop using full stops. :popcorn: :innocent:

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32

So, just to follow-up on this topic.

In the end I was impatient so went with a Hisense TV.

I wanted something that I could physically drive to a shop and pick-up, preferably on the same day that I ordered it, and not have to wait around for a delivery guy to drop it off. So, that meant either order from Argos or Curry’s.

All of the Curry’s TV in my budget where at least 5 days wait for it to be ready for collection - whereas Argos had TV’s that I could collect the same day.

So, I went with a 43" Hisense QLED TV. I originally had an idea of getting a 50", but then I measured the space it would be fitting into, and realised there’s no way it’ll fit.

So far, so good. Bit of a weird setup where you’ve got to download their app but it all installed fairly smoothly. I’ve now got ‘Live’ TV again without an aerial through the Freely service on it.

Picture quality looks good and when I plugged in my Apple TV box it picked up the TV supported Dolby Vision and just automatically configured itself to use that.

A bonus that I didn’t even think to check - the TV is not only Airplay compatible - it’s actually HomeKit compatible and as I’m an Apple person, that’s nice for me.

It looks like Hisense is no longer using Roku for their software though - it’s now ‘Vivaa’.

So far the only major downside is the ridiculous amount of pre-installed apps that you can’t uninstall at all - 54 of them! Including the NBA channel, FIFA channel, UEFA channel and UFC one. You can re-order them so I’ve put all the ones I’d actually use on the left (BBC iPlayer and Sounds, ITVx etc.) and shifted everything else off the screen to the right but when one of those apps includes the Amazon Freevee app - which Amazon have already said they’re going to discontinue that as a standalone service and just merge it into Prime, is annoying.

I’ll probably continue to use the Apple TV box for ‘on demand’ stuff - rather than the apps on the TV mainly because Apple TV also lets me know when new episodes of something I’ve been watching has been released and the TV apps don’t seem to do that (at least, not from the TV homepage - they probably do when you go into each specific app though).

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33

How have you found Freely? I reckon it’s going to be a requirement for my next TV.

34

It’s been exactly as I expected it to be honestly.

I press the ‘Guide’ button on my remote, it brings up the EPG and from there I can select a channel. Or, I can go into the ‘Live TV’ section from the home screen (because every TV has to have a home screen now…) and go up/down through the channels and it’s exactly like flicking through the channels as if it was their an aerial.

There are some channels missing compared to Freeview - the ‘biggest’ ones that I’ve noticed being Sky Mix, Quest and Really. I expect there’s a load of shopping channels missing as well (I’m not exactly upset about that!).

Selecting a channel through the EPG, or in ‘Live TV’ loads the channel directly - no bouncing over and logging into to the relevant app like iPlayer or ITVx. All pretty seamless.

I suspect ‘Freely’ TVs will work well at the moment for those places like bedrooms where you may not have an aerial. You could even, at a pinch, take one on holiday if you can’t bear to be without a TV and if you’ve got a good enough mobile phone data package/signal, set it up for while you’re away.

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35

That’s odd as I’ve got those three channels via Freely on my Panasonic